


Eddie’s Pieces Missing

by girlswillbewomen



Series: the pieces missing [2]
Category: IT (Movies - Muschietti), IT - Stephen King
Genre: Alternate Universe, Alternate Universe - No Pennywise (IT), Alternate Universe - Normal High School, Bad coping mechanisms, Implied/Referenced Alcohol Abuse/Alcoholism, Internalized Homophobia, M/M, Mutual Pining, Period-Typical Homophobia, References to Depression, Sonia Kaspbrak's A+ Parenting, Suicidal Thoughts, Teenage Losers Club (IT), Unreliable Narrator, all the fun stuff, but again, no pennywise, no slow burn we fall in love fast like men, teenage feelings, this is just after pennywise age
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-08-23
Updated: 2020-08-31
Packaged: 2021-03-06 15:34:27
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply, Underage
Chapters: 2
Words: 7,268
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26071219
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/girlswillbewomen/pseuds/girlswillbewomen
Summary: “So...if I start back ranting will you kiss me again?” I said with all the heart of a lion but the voice of a mouse. I didn’t regret it but if Richie was opposed I could feign ignorance because he couldn’t prove anything.The brave feeling had to be directed to my thimble game piece instead of at Richie because he eventually looked up from his hands through his glasses this time and looked at me dumbfounded. I had to bite my cheek to stop from smiling but that didn’t necessarily do anything but make my smile hurt a little bit.After a beat, Richie surprised me for the second time this afternoon by saying, “I don’t think we need the pretence of you ranting anymore to get to the good part.” Pretence. Big word Mr. AP student.
Relationships: Eddie Kaspbrak/Richie Tozier
Series: the pieces missing [2]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1892635
Kudos: 12





	1. the calm, family friendly game of monopoly

**Author's Note:**

> hewwo! it is I, miranda. but none of u would know that because is my first fic lol I was trying to sleep one night and wrote this in my head and then was like fuck it i’ll write fic for the first time since I was 12 maybe it’ll be a little better. hopefully that turns out to be true but i’ll let u be the judge.
> 
> anyway this is one part in a series going to be told from both richie and eddie’s pov’s. I’m going to post them both at the same time and whatever one you want to read first you can. or you can just read one to completion and read the other one after. but jsyk i’m taking the unreliable narrator thing very seriously so prepare to be upset at some conflict later on lol
> 
> thank you so much if you read this and most importantly thank you max, hazel, and diana for beta-ing this (esp hazel who has never and will never be into it but is just a Good Friend) I am forever indebted to your comments and hype you’ve given me could not put this out without you
> 
> enjoy! 💖

So I think I might actually be in love with my best friend. Like...love love. Which would be fine if my best friend wasn’t the idiot Richie Tozier. There’s no way Richie could feel the same, honestly. I truly don’t believe there’s many who feel like I do...this attraction to boys. I mean even David Bowie changed his mind about coming out. Mostly, I feel like these feelings are just confusion from me maybe actually thinking Richie’s jokes are good but not admitting it? I don’t know but I do know it will probably never be reciprocated. And I don’t want to lose him as a best friend because of this defect in my personality.

He really is my best friend. You’d think I’d have more in common with Stanley or Bill. Not much of what Richie is into is the same as what I’m into. Maybe that’s why he and I click. He shows me new things and makes me smile even when I hate it. He’s just simply the best.

But just as a friend. He’s not someone I want a relationship with. Or simply want to kiss. Because that’s wrong. Don’t forget that, Eds. Fuck. Eddie.

Despite Richie being my best friend and the holder of my attention most of the time, I couldn’t live without my other friends: the Losers.

Bill has lived next to me since birth and he’s one of the only friends my mom doesn’t stop me from seeing when I say I’m hanging out with him (he’s usually the name I use when I’m going to Rich’s). Bill’s been the closest friend to me and has helped me when my mom has been less than satisfactory in parenting and the like.

Stan was around when the Losers officially became the “Losers” with Richie, Bill, and I. He was the only level headed one with us for a while and I’m sure we would’ve been in many a pickle without him. Thankfully he still likes us enough to get us out of the pickles we continue to get into.

Ben then joined the team and he and I get along quite nicely on the avoiding conflict front. He sticks with me though when I think things are unsafe or too risky. He’s mostly, I think, worried about Bev, but we bond over it nonetheless.

Bev is hard to read. I love her and obviously she’s a part of the group I couldn’t live without, but sometimes she makes fun of things that hurt me. I mean. She doesn’t do it as much as Richie does. Maybe it’s because I’m not attracted to her. (Even though I’m NOT attracted to Richie. I’m not.)

Mike is probably Richie’s best friend after me. Maybe they’re better friends than we are I’m not sure... They talk a lot and Richie can’t hardly make a bad decision with Mike around. I guess that benefits me wildly but hinders when it’s just Rich and I. But Mike helps me calm down when I get over excited about my breathing, he helps me remember I don’t have asthma and that I’m stronger than what my mom has told me I’ve been for all these years.

Unfortunately, Mike’s not my mom. Sonia Kaspbrak is my mom. My mom who lied to me for thirteen years that I had asthma and was fragile when I in fact, did not and am not. I was told by my pharmacist of all people that she was giving me water mixed with medicine flavoured whatever to make me think my inhaler was doing anything helpful.

It took me weeks to calm down and I had to approach my mom after that and tell her I’m not taking her stupid medicine anymore. How could I trust her? How could I let her have any more control over my life? I was angry. But I decided and saw that angry wasn’t going to get me anywhere. With Sonia, manipulative Sonia, I would have to pretend to be the best kid, following the rules and pretending until I don’t have to anymore. So I take her inhalers and abide by her curfews and flush every pill she gives me when she’s not looking.

But I lie. I lie so much there’s probably a special room in hell for me. I never really tell her where I’m going almost ever. Unless I’m genuinely going over to Bill’s but usually she doesn’t know everyone else is over there as well. She doesn’t deserve the truth. In no universe does a manipulative, selfish, self satisfaction seeking Sonia Kaspbrak get to ruin my life. She can just think she does.

But this whole Richie thing is different. Yes I’m all for doing things that make my mother upset and liking the same sex would definitely do that, but I can’t do something that would also make the rest of the world upset. Liking boys just...isn’t natural and I just...doubt it’s a mutual affection in regards to Richie so...

It doesn’t even matter! Sonia can have the treat of me not being gay because I will never have the opportunity to act on it. Which is better for all involved.

Speaking of those involved, I am going over to Richie’s house to talk school schedules for our first year of high school. It’s kind of crazy we got this far. The Losers have had a rough couple of lives. But we’re more like the survivors if anything. I think we can make it. As long as we stick together.

Which is a plan that goes to shit when I realise I have no classes with Richie. Like, not even one. I was going to take the same electives as the Losers but my mom insisted I take an extra study hall so I don’t lose focus on my academics. Plus all the other electives were too “dirty” or too “gay” (her words not mine).

I was devastated but Richie looked even more so. I tried to cheer him up my reminding him, “Hey! Look! We have the same lunch period! And I’m pretty sure all Freshman do too so we can be with the Losers to discuss how sucky high school is.” I said it with a laugh trying to cheer up my usually chipper best friend.

He was visibly discouraged. “I mean, I guess that’s alright. It just fucking sucks I can’t see Eddie Spaghetti more than 1 hour a day during school.” he said back looking up at me. I saw his hand twitch at his side. Was he going to reach out? Also I fucking hate that nickname why do the butterflies in my stomach think otherwise.

I decided that sometimes friends hold hands and reached mine out to him, “Look,” and then decided that he might freak out so I set my hand down an inch from his. “It’s gonna suck. But we’re still best friends. I won’t go finding another class clown in fucking Honours Algebra.” I snicker out. 

He smiles at that, looking up from our hands and my body kind of goes on autopilot I-love-Richie-no-I-don’t-yes-I-do mode. I reach up to put a hand on his cheek a tad too softly to be jokey and say in probably too ham of a voice, “You’re the only idiot for me.”

He smacks my hand away which reinforces the he-doesn’t-like-me narrative my brain’s been trying to convince me of and we get ready to play this dumb game of Monopoly. 

I’m winning, obviously, until Richie buys Park Place and I kind of give up. It’s hard to focus around him anyway so I feel like I’m allowed to take this last day to feel my feelings before they’re packed away for the rest of my life. Richie doesn’t like me but even if he did High School Richie would never.

Okay well I was focusing on him until he reminded me about this dumb thing I learned while reading about the history of the police the other day. As people who live in a town of shitty adults it’s easy to not trust our police. But as it turns out it’s easy to not trust any police! This is my latest curiosity-turned-rage venture and heck if Richie wasn’t going to hear about it.

“You know there was this idiot group of ‘private investigators’ called the Pinkertons in the 1890s who were like the start of the police made only for the privileged and they had a fucking shoot off with this steel labour union because Carnegie wouldn’t give them a living wage. What’s hilarious is the fucking ‘boys in blue’ tried to surrender what? Four times and they just kept shooting down their flag. Oh to have the balls of that labour union.” I was on a role. I love learning things and yelling about them after learning them especially to my friends who have no interest.

Weirdly Richie was kind of just staring at me. I took a breath and a break from ranting to the Monopoly board to see him looking at my with a head crooked to the side and his mouth open. He was very obviously staring at my lips. I responded to this new information in my brain by trying to extract the other info I had as fast as I could so I could hold on to the image of Richie looking like he was going to kiss me forever. That might be the closest I get.

“I mean Carnegie was a man FOR the people before this he was a guy who actually cared for labour unions until it came to him actually losing workers-“ I was stopped in my tracks by Richie pulling my face to his to give me a kiss. I kind of didn’t believe it was really happening and...may have stopped doing anything that would let Richie know I approved of him kissing me by sitting there. Limp. Held in a death grip by Richie’s hands.

He finally lets me go and curls up into a ball behind his hands and knees. I had never been more into something and showed it less than that moment which I realised might have been — well surely was — how Richie took it considering he looked on the edge of running out of his own house and never coming back.

After my face relaxed from the shock and frozen state of being in the middle of yelling about workers rights when my best friend’s mouth jumped on me, I frantically tried to look for a way to tell Richie that, yes, I enjoyed that and, please for the love of Carnegie kiss me again.

I cleared my throat to get his attention and asked the basic question on my mind, “Did you just kiss me to shut me up?” While I was grateful for the kiss I would like to know if it came out of necessity of silence or affection. Maybe it could be both. Sometimes with Richie I want to punch him and kiss him. I think this can be the same kind of thing.

He nodded, still scared and behind his shield of hands only peaking above his glasses to look at me so I know he couldn’t see shit. This is where I decided to be brave and make the situation move forward instead of wondering for another five minutes or 12 years.

“So...if I start back ranting will you kiss me again?” I said with all the heart of a lion but the voice of a mouse. I didn’t regret it but if Richie was opposed I could feign ignorance because he couldn’t prove anything.

The brave feeling had to be directed to my thimble game piece instead of at Richie because he eventually looked up from his hands through his glasses this time and looked at me dumbfounded. I had to bite my cheek to stop from smiling but that didn’t necessarily do anything but make my smile hurt a little bit.

After a beat, Richie surprised me for the second time this afternoon by saying, “I don’t think we need the pretence of you ranting anymore to get to the good part.” Pretence. Big word Mr. AP student.

This time when his hands came for my face I knew what they were doing. And I leaned into kiss Richie Tozier. My best friend. He kissed me and I kissed him back. It was soft and yet passionate, full of years of yearning and young ideals of love. I don’t want to kiss anyone but Richie for the rest of my life.

He leaned back as I assume his back hurt a bit from stretching across the game board but in no world was I letting this kiss stop so I moved with him.

Unfortunately, I’m as ungracious as a baby deer and my risen knee landed directly on Park fucking Place.

“Fuck.” I exclaimed as I broke from the kiss. But I didn’t want to be apart from Richie. Like ever again. So I just winced from the pain and placed my forehead on his cursing this game and it’s tiny hotels.

This idiot laughs at me (and so do I) before saying “I think that means I win, Eds.”

Aghast from the blasphemy I just heard against my perfect Monopoly playing, I sat back disconnecting our foreheads.

“Fuck you! You only had $20 left you were so close to being bankrupt!” And then for good measure I added, “and don’t call me Eds.”

I punched him in the arm and began cleaning up the devil hotels that stopped the best four seconds of my life. 

“What! You can’t just forfeit the game I want to take all your money!” he said with the cutest and dumbest little pout if we were under different circumstances I might have listened to him. Thankfully the situation we were in was far better than any game.

“Um, at this moment I’d like to have a clear shot to your lips but we can surely continue playing if that’s what you’d rather do.” I said it with some sass added onto the end that didn’t not look like something Richie was into.

He once again looked dumbfounded (a double dumbfounded Richie! from the lips of little Eddie Kaspbrak!) and helped me sort through the money because he wanted the experience of touching the money he’d never get to handle if we kept playing.

After we were done sorting through it all he gave a chuckle and said, “Man who knew kissing your best friend would give you so much confidence, Eds.” And then he winked at me. He actually winked! It was my turn to be dumbfounded.

He did, however set off my “Eds” trigger so I had to retaliate by throwing my Monopoly thimble at him while he threw his race car back at me. A thimble and a race car. Who would have thunk.

The jubilee was short lived when Rich heard his mom’s signature squeak turning into the driveway. Shit. The only thing keeping me here is parental oblivion and that’s about to go out the window when Richie’s gossipy mom phones my paranoid mother who thinks I’m at an all day Health Clinic with Dr. Keene.

“Shit you gotta go now,” Richie says going to the window to look out and see what good ol’ Maggie Tozier is doing. He seems relatively calm so I imagine she’s started in with the neighbour about the town gossip.

That gives me some extra time to be confident and maybe even make a joke that will make Richie laugh. “Man just as I was getting some action,” is what I settled for and instead of a laugh I got a third dumbfounded Richie which honestly might be just as good.

He coughed himself out of his gaze and looked back out the window saying, “Ha ha very funny but for real you have 15 minutes tops before she comes in here and gossips to your dear old mum that you’re not at an all day health clinic at Keene’s.”

“Okay okay I’m going.” I’d heard from Bev or in a Teen Beat magazine Ben secretly hoards for the New Kids on the Block posters that you should always leave them wanting more. So that’s why I said, “But before I do I just have something for you.”

I picked up the Pennsylvania Railroad card and walked over to Richie to whisper very close to his ear, “That’ll be $400 for landing on my railroad,” in the most sultry voice a boy my age who barely knows what sultry means can muster. I slipped the card into his hand, winked, and ran off down the stairs to the backyard where I had the foresight enough to park my bike. 

I hop on it as I hear Rich yelling behind me and turn once before leaving to see him flipping me off. I blow him a kiss of love mixed with satisfaction from not only getting him with that joke but the fact that I could “get him” at anything. Especially on my lips. And he initiated it! Today is going to be etched on my brain forever.

As I ride home I don’t think of anything but the feel of his lips on mine and the calloused rough yet tender hands on my face. In those things I found the answer to a question I never thought would be resolved. The kiss was my answer. This new found confidence was my answer. Richie was my answer.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> if you’d like, the chapter that coincides with this but from richie’s pov is linked [here](https://archiveofourown.org/works/26070625/chapters/63407662). it’s not required for the story but would behoove your understanding a bit more :•)
> 
> thanks again for reading! let me know what you think in the comments!!


	2. neosporin can't fix everything

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> There’s something so freeing about riding a bike with your best friend on the cusp of fall. The wind rustling the leaves and your hair so you feel like you’re one with nature but fully alive because the boy you love is there with you, experiencing nature on the same wavelength of nature. One with the earth but also separate and more powerful. Like feelings and moms and fake asthma and hellfire and damnation can’t take away the pure freedom being felt. There’s nothing like it.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> hello! i'm not gonna copy every a/n from each perspective to be exactly the same so if I miss something i'm sorry sjdbk anyway there are quite a few tw's with this chapter including homophobia, internalised homophobia, and some suicidal ideation just want to make sure I get that out first and foremost
> 
> this chapter has......a lot of repression in it please be kind. although if you're coming from the richie chapter hating eddie I sincerely hope you can at least understand him a bit more with this chapter.
> 
> thank you diana for helping me write english better even though she's venezuelan (argentinian <3)
> 
> if you enjoy please leave a kudos and/or a comment! see the end of the chapter for the link to richie's perspective chapter

I kissed Richie Tozier. I’m sorry, no. Richie Tozier kissed me. First! There is absolutely no way that that sentence is true. And yet the lingering feeling of excitement on my lips and joy in my bones tell me that it absolutely was true. I lived it.

I know this because each time I close my eyes I’m living it again. The way his lips so aggressively cut me off in the middle of me spewing about something that I can’t even remember now. And how scared he was that I didn’t feel the same way. As if I could live as his best friend for twelve years and have any feelings but absolute love for him.

Richie Tozier, my best friend, likes me. And he knows that I like him. Now is the part I’m worried about. The part that, despite the whole not knowing if he liked me, was what stopped me from ever actually doing anything about my feelings in the first place.

Momma has never said anything about guys liking guys herself, but we’ve been to some pretty prolific sermons from Pastor Mike where he screamed about the wrongness of it and my mom has nodded and shouted “amen” to every word he’s said so I’m sure she stands with him on this.

I know it’s wrong. It’s like a defect or some shit and everything in my life and around me have reminded me that it’s not something I should feel. I’m sure this is how Rich feels. Him and the rest of our friends. We’re losers but there’s no way they’d allow a queer in there with them.

It’s kind of crazy, I know this to be true and I believe it...and yet every time I think of Richie in those dumb glasses doing those dumb accents telling those dumb jokes...every time I’m around him I don’t see what’s so wrong with it. I love him. I love him with a love that has never had a purer form than when I’m with him. Somehow it’s not wrong when it’s him. It’s not.

This thought is what drives me to do one of the stupidest things I’ve done in my life. Tell my mother the truth. Well, not exactly, but...the essence of it.

My mother is bad at being one, yes. She lies to me and she takes her anger out on me that is really about her own insecurities (Bev told me that once. She’s really smart with parent stuff...I would talk to her more if she didn’t intimidate me so much…) But I think, under all those lies and manipulations she’s just hurting. She’s hurting because her husband who she loved died when I was born and she had to raise a kid on her own when she had no idea what she was doing. She didn’t have a mom there to help her. I think she was just painfully alone. And I think she just wants me to never feel alone. Even though what she does to me makes me feel more alone than I’ve ever been.

It is because of this...probably very misguided rationale that I go downstairs Wednesday morning and talk to Sonia Kaspbrak. Out of my own free will. This action shocks my mom as much as it shocks me because as soon as she hears the steps creek and looks at me still in my PJs and not dressed, ready to spend all day lying to her about my whereabouts, she stands up.

“Oh! Eddiebear! Are you okay?? You don’t usually come down this early...are you sick? Do you have a fever? Here come to Mommy let me check and see what your temperature is-” she starts right away.

“No, Mom I’m fine. I came down to talk to you.” I say as I sit at the table in an effort to ground myself for the conversation that lies ahead.

“Aw, Eddiebear I love it when we talk...but my program is on right now. Can this wait until later?” She asks without really asking and already drops me to go sit back in her easy chair in front of whatever 1950s racist comedy is on the screen at the moment.

“No, mom, actually it can’t wait. It’s something important I have to ask you about and I’d appreciate just a fraction of the time you spend at the television to listen to what I want to talk to you about.” I bite back. I know she doesn’t understand what’s going through my head and why I am so touchy about the situation. But I am just asking her to listen instead of talk or ignore for once in her life and I think that has allowed me the right to demand her attention.

“Well, you don’t have to be rude, Edward. I will listen to what you have to say but at least let me turn off the TV.” She’s annoyed already at me. This is how I know this isn’t what love is supposed to look like. She dotes on me and spends all her time planning my life but the one second I’m “out of line” or anywhere other than where she wants me to be I’m the burden. I’m not allowed an ounce of independent thought.

“Mommy, I know what the pastor has said before about…….about ‘alternate lifestyles.’ About girls liking girls and boys liki-ng boys,” I get caught on the word because my mother is suddenly enamoured with what I am saying enough to rush over and sit down in front of me, eyes rapt to me wondering what else is going to come out of my mouth after saying this. “But...I just wanted to know what you...think. About that. The lifestyles.”

“Edward, I know you are not talking about one of your friends who is acting like this. Because if that Beverly girl you are spending time with says she’s feeling attraction to other girls I want you to get away from her immediately she is not a good role model anyway and this is not the kind of thing I want my Eddiebear to be around.”

“No, Ma, I’m not talking about anyone! Please stop jumping to conclusions. Beverly is an amazing girl and has been through harder things than any of us! I don’t know why you always have to attack her when I’m talking about completely unrelated things. I’m just asking about, I don’t know, in general what you think about that stuff,” I say back. And then under my breath add “But I guess you just told me how you feel…”

“Eddie, there is no reason to tell you how I feel about that apart from affirming what Pastor Mike says about it. It’s wrong. I agree with everything our Pastor says because he is closer to God than any of us. He says it is wrong and any feelings of the kind or any feelings even close to that kind are perverted and a way for little boys to be thrown off the path they are supposed to go down. I trust you understand no self-respecting child of God would ever dream of having those wrong feelings-”

“What if the ‘self-respecting child of God’ couldn’t help those feelings! What are they supposed to do? Kill themselves?” I cut her off angrily. I surprised her with my rage and surprised myself with my apparent deep rooted issue with myself. Was this what I’ve felt all along? I know I can’t control these feelings and I guess I never truly thought about what I would do about it. If I didn’t get the answer I wanted from my mom or whatever higher power decided these things did I have no hope?

“Edward, killing oneself is a sin as well. That is not a solution. As for having these ‘uncontrollable feelings’...we are all masters of our own selves. If someone doesn’t want to be a homosexual they simply will not be.” She says matter-of-factly. “I don’t know why you’re asking me this or what brought it to your mind, but just know I am sure if there are any feelings within you that are not right you can simply make them go away by knowing the truth of what becomes of them. There is no future in a relationship with the same sex. God made us so that we can have futures with the opposite sex. And God will make anyone who thinks different atone for their sins in the end.”

I just sat there. I didn’t know what to say. I was apparently thinking of ending it all if Sonia Kaspbrak didn’t approve of me. And she just said she didn’t approve of me even though she didn’t know she was saying it. I was speechless and dumbstruck at the power of the words that may as well define my life now.

“Eddiebear, I love you. I know that you are feeling the right feelings and making the right decisions but there is always room to improve as a person. Maybe you and I go to the Bible study for troubled teens Friday night and see if we can’t get you back into shape and start treating your asthma again. You know I worry so much for you.” She says with a cry in the back of her throat, reaching out to grab my hand.

“I have plans Friday night with Bill, Mom. You know this.” I say retracting my hand from her grasp and quickly getting up to go upstairs to my room. The only place I feel safe in this house and yet it doesn’t feel quite enough right now. “I love you Mommy I’ll see you for dinner.” I say with not much feeling at all.

As I walk upstairs to probably cry and contemplate life on my bed for the next three days I hear an over exaggerated sob leak out of my mom’s throat. I really wish I cared more to stay and comfort her.

\----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

So. That’s pretty much it. These feelings can’t go away, whether by will or want, and I can’t tell anyone about them. If Richie didn’t already obviously know I wouldn’t even tell him. But I don’t feel hopeless. I don’t want to end it all. Even with the possibility of Richie not wanting me anymore. I think that I can just live with this bottled up. Maybe, like my mother said, I can change.

But then the unlikely comes to my mind. What if Richie still wants to keep kissing? What if he didn’t just accidentally kiss me and he actually wants to continue what happened with us? I can’t see a world where that’s possible but Tuesday kind of flipped my perspective on a lot of things.

Not sharing my feelings with the world, though. That’s something I have to deal with myself. I’m sure Rich doesn’t want to tell the world he’s gay either. He has so much riding on his overly sexualised jokes about girls and moms it seems like he wouldn’t want to give that up for some guy he kissed.

So on Thursday, after a day and a half of crying, I decided to never tell anyone my feelings. Maybe just the people I’m kissing. (I hope Richie is the only one I kiss but I know he’s going to get tired of it at some point.) Denying who I am forever seems like a welcome alternative to losing my best friend.

From then on I practised what I was going to say to Richie if he asks about what we’re going to tell the Losers. Is he even going to ask? I know he kissed me but it’s taking a lot for me to actually believe he truly does like me. For all I know he’s just trying to practise kissing and decided doing it with his best friend is easier than complicating any female friendships he has.

After those mental gymnastics I decided not to prepare anything to say. If it comes up organically I will be nonchalant. This is what Rich would want anyway. And one thing I know for sure: Richie wouldn’t want the Losers to know about him liking guys (if he even does??????) so telling them even the subtlest of facts regarding that is not even something on my mind.

Finally, Friday rolls around and I can stop mulling everything over and just get my interaction with Richie over with. Except as I’m getting dressed in my sporty red shorts and coolest periodic table t-shirt (I have another one but it’s a little too lacklustre for the occasion, plus I don’t even like science so if I’m going to rep its discography at least I can look cool doing it), I remember what I’m doing. Despite everything that happened Tuesday, I’m going to hang out with my best friend. And that’s something I always look forward to. I’m going to set expectations on low and mindless Richie fun on high. We’ll see how that works out.

I zoom past my mom down the stairs not exactly wanting to hear her thoughts on my shorts and race out the door after grabbing my trusty fanny pack.

Rich only lives a few streets down and he’s usually fashionably late so I should arrive on his street by the time he’s getting on his bike to leave. I hate being late but as a best friend of this guy I’ve gotten used to it. At least for Losers Functions.

Like a psychic, I knew exactly what Richie would be doing and turned onto the street just as he got out his bike. I rang my bike bell to warn him against taking off so I could ride with him. Sometimes he leaves without me and his excuse is that he thought I forgot about him. I don’t know how he could even begin to think I could do that.

He must have thought I was going to forget him again today because he comes toward me with hesitation, an adjective almost unthinkable to describe anything Richie Tozier does.

Thankfully, whatever thought he had faded away with his “‘ello guvnor!” greeting in his worst British accent. Like, genuinely, my mother without even trying could do better. I did not try to hide my disappointment in his attempt from my face.

“That was the worst accent I ever heard,” I said, not hiding my disappointment in his attempt from my words either.

However, it was endearing enough for me to want to congratulate Richie for trying so I reached out to pat him on the shoulder. He flinched.

Oh God… I thought. I’ve really just fucked it all up here and now. No more hanging out. No more riding our bikes together. No more - and just like Richie interrupted my rant with his mouth he interrupted my brainwaves with the rest of him.

Suddenly, I was taken up in a Richie power squeeze, him picking me up from my middle and lifting me off the bike I was sitting on to give me a standard Rich greeting. I didn’t hug back because it lasted for a mere four seconds but those four seconds took my crippling self doubt and traded it for butterflies and a happiness I only truly know from my best friend.

After the four seconds of pure joy and Richie hugs were up he asks, “You ready to go, Spaghetti?”

I have to answer with the mere sound “mmhmm” to stop myself from confessing my love.

There’s something so freeing about riding a bike with your best friend on the cusp of fall. The wind rustling the leaves and your hair so you feel like you’re one with nature but fully alive because the boy you love is there with you, experiencing nature on the same wavelength of nature. One with the earth but also separate and more powerful. Like feelings and moms and fake asthma and hellfire and damnation can’t take away the pure freedom being felt. There’s nothing like it.

There’s also nothing like the sound of a dying cat or whatever noise was made when Rich hit a rock and KO’d onto the pavement. I raced back to him from the few feet I was in front of him to assess the damage. He usually gets hurt while riding his bike but he doesn’t always look so shell shocked when it happens. Usually it’s met with a triumphant face and a “Gnarly!”

I ran to him already assessing what I had to extract from my first aid kit in my fanny pack to clean up whatever mess just happened.

“Oh my gosh Richie, you idiot, are you okay???” I said genuinely caring but also yelling a tad at his classic clumsiness. He looked at me with the most affectionate eyes I had to look away for a second to keep from blushing.

“Just sprained my ankle. But thankfully the fall let me keep my funny bone,” he joked. Not one of his best ones but I could tell he was in pain.

I kneeled down next to him to get a closer look at his scraped elbow and started searching for the Neosporin I have specifically for scraped elbows. I was a bit flustered because of the blood starting to drip from the wound so I may have looked a bit crazy.

Apparently that’s the magic potion for getting Richie to show affection because mid-search he gently turns my face with his non-injured hand so I can look at him. My eyes search around us for a split second making sure there aren’t any lingering pedestrians. Thankfully, we were in a backlot of a run down subdivision with almost no kids and middle aged men and women who had much better (or more meaningful) things to do than assess the homoerotic tension of the space beyond their back fences. I took that fact as a way to lean into the touch and relax for a split second because, it was Richie after all.

Richie, who asked the dumb but effective question, “Hey, Eds. You know what would make me feel better?” while smirking up at me. I felt my face get hot with the thought of what he was going to say next.

And then, classic Eddie kicked in and deflected the situation by rambling. “That’s nice Richie,” I managed to choke out while trying to turn my attention back to my pack, “but you’re actually bleeding at the moment so I don’t think-“ and of course the fucker kisses me again. I’m never going to finish any more of my tangents.

I didn’t want to waste this kiss this time by not letting Richie know I was interested and abandoned the Neosporin search to place my hand on top of his. Doing so made Richie smile into the kiss which, instead of killing me like I would’ve hypothesised it would have, just made me smile back.

Unfortunately, my brain started running over everything I had been thinking about this entire week and the fact that Richie was currently hurt so I had to break off the kiss before both of us probably would have liked.

“Can I stop you from bleeding out now?” I ask, still holding his hand on my face.

“I’m all yours, Doc.” he said, retracting his arm to set it himself up and give me a better angle at his other elbow. Unfortunately for me, I could feel my face heat up from him calling me another nickname so I had to hide it by searching for that damn hidden Neosporin again. I swear Richie could call me a dumbass and I’d blush.

I patched him up and returned my items to their places, the Neosporin going somewhere new and memorable so I don’t lose it again, and got up. Richie had no such luck. I tried helping him up, not realising how much he hurt his ankle and just ended up putting us both off balance as we tried to not act like two puppets who have just been cut from their strings.

He gained his balance but I still was worried. “Woah there Richie are you sure you can ride to the clubhouse?”

“Are you offering to carry me?” He asked with a wag of his eyebrows only to be interrupted by him dumbly trying to stand on his bad ankle and wincing out in pain.

The chaos and cuteness that happened in those few short seconds led me to just flat out lie and come up with an excuse. “I think that might raise some suspicions. Also I’m about as strong as a piece of string. But I’ll try to be a crutch.” The lie was that I’m weak. I am actually quite strong since I stopped following Mommy’s eating plan. Now that I actually get protein I can lift almost anything that gets in my fourteen year old life’s way. But like my excuse expressed, I don’t want anyone getting suspicious.

I put myself under his shoulder and helped him grab his bike as we slowly made our way to the clubhouse, bikes in tow. Well bikes and Richie in tow for me.

“Raise suspicions that you’re strong enough to hold Richie Tozier?” he asks as we’re getting our bikes together and start walking.

“No,” I laugh and nudge him in the side. Right now, Eddie brain has decided, is the perfect time to bite the bullet and express what has been eating me all week. After I bring it up, Richie will know we’re on the same page and there doesn’t have to be any awkwardness left to taint the good thing we have going.

“But if we’re going to keep kissing in secret I definitely don’t want to give anyone the idea that we are in public,” I said jokingly but in a way that did not give off a single hint of joking because I can’t communicate well.

Richie stopped hopping and towing his bike to turn to me with an inquisitive look on his face. “You don’t…” he pondered for a second what he was going to say, almost looking like he wanted to make a joke but felt the situation not allowing for one. Fuck. “You don’t even want to tell the Losers?” He laughed but I knew it was just a courtesy laugh.

He felt hurt by what I had said. I knew it in the way he responded. I knew it in his lack of comedy deflection. I didn’t know what I did. I tried to do what he wanted and now it seems that we had different ideas about the Tozier brain. I guess I’m not that good of a friend if I said something this hurtful to him.

I reminded myself: nonchalant. This doesn’t have to be a big deal. Richie makes light of heavy situations all the time. I’m just going to try and make a joke and maybe it will all blow over…whatever was happening.

“I mean, there doesn’t seem to be any reason to ruin our good friendships by making them think we’re a couple of homos.” I say with a very forced, very painful laugh. Richie and I. Gay. Funniest joke I ever heard.

He separated from me to stand in front of my path and force me to look him in the eyes. “Are you saying we’re not? I think that’s kind of the definition of kissing your male best friend.” He was trying to turn this whole thing into a joke of fucking course not like it’s what eats at my brain day and night. I knew it didn’t mean anything to him. So, I just said what he was apparently thinking.

“Richie. Being gay is wrong.” It hurts to say out loud. To the one person nothing felt wrong with. In fact, if anything was wrong it became right when it involved Richie. That’s what got us into jumping into the quarry, stealing from Keene’s, and kissing our best friends. If it was involving Richie Tozier it didn’t matter the consequences. It was Him.

And yet, I know what people say about gay people. I don’t want that life. I don’t want the pain. I think more importantly, I don’t want Richie to experience that. Maybe that’s why I said what I said next. “Everyone knows that and our friends aren’t just going to ignore that because their hypochondriac and jokester friend are smooching on the side.”

Richie Tozier was silent. Never in my life have I experienced a silent or dumbstruck Richie Tozier until we started kissing. But this was different. This was verging on the edge of hurt. Fuck. I can’t say the right thing. I just wanted to help the situation and now I’m sure I’ve ruined it forever.

“Well fine,” he finally said, not looking at me but taking his bike from my hand. “I guess we’ll stop 'smooching’. See you at the clubhouse Eddie.”

As he teetered away, as fast as his one working foot could take him, I realise I’ve ruined the one good thing in my life. The only thing that truly made me think my future wasn’t marrying a Sonia-approved mate and living without control for the rest of my life. I lost the one thing that made me feel free. The one thing that gave me the power in my life. Me and no one else. All because I used that power to pretend I didn’t care about the only thing I’ve really ever cared about.

He wasn’t fast getting away but my frozen self could do nothing but stand there as I watched him walk away. Soon enough the tears blurred my vision and my knees became too weak to keep myself up any longer.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> richie's perspective can be found [ here](https://archiveofourown.org/works/26070625/chapters/63781792#workskin).
> 
> if you'd like to holler at me on other websites you can find me on tumblr [@ridinonmyskateboard](https://ridinonmyskateboard.tumblr.com/) or twitter [@staniel_uris](https://twitter.com/staniel_uris) <3


End file.
